Xiaomi's Poco F9 Pro is a phone that feels like an upper-tier device and was meant to be priced like an upper-mid-range one — and that is exactly where the trouble starts. In heise online's test, the hardware delivers a lot, but the launch price jumped sharply: €900 (list) for 256GB and €1,000 for 512GB, €250 more than the previous model. Street prices have since fallen to roughly €655 and €715.
The display is the strongest point. The OLED measures 6.59 inches at 2510 × 1156 pixels and is very bright; the test found it remained readable in sunlight. The refresh rate reaches 185Hz, but switches in only six steps between 60 and 185Hz — there is no LTPO, and 185Hz appears only in games that support it. In apps, the ceiling is 120Hz by default.
Power comes from a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, paired with 12GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage — with no microSD slot. An extra chip, Vision Boost D8, is meant to upscale games to as much as 185 fps. Connectivity is current: Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6.0, NFC and an infrared port, though the USB-C port only runs at USB 2.0 speeds. The test praises the Bose-tuned stereo speakers and finds the under-display fingerprint sensor reliable.
The camera is mixed. The 200-megapixel main sensor (f/1.68) with optical stabilisation produces very good daylight shots and usable results after dark. The 50-megapixel telephoto with 2.5x optical zoom is thin for this price class — 3x or more is long since standard — and softens at night. The 8-megapixel ultra-wide falls noticeably behind. Video runs up to 4K at 60 fps, but stabilisation is not always dependable.
The battery is generous: 6,330 mAh using silicon-carbon technology, lasting about 17 hours in PCMark's battery test. Charging tops out at 100W wired and roughly 50W wirelessly. Software is Android 16 with Hyper OS 3, including advertisements that can be switched off. Xiaomi promises four major Android updates and quarterly security patches until 2032.
The verdict is split: plenty of performance, a very bright display and long runtime against an aggressive price strategy and a telephoto lens that does not match the class. For buyers who value speed and screen over camera, it remains a cheaper alternative to a flagship.
